Monday, 26 December 2011

Well I'm continuing to lose weight. That's good. But that bad news is that I've not restarted my exercise. Other bad news is that my car has a faulty fuel pump, which means that I won't be using it in a while. I don't mind busing, especially in summer, but it's probably not worth busing to the gym. So I want to start running again. A challenge I'm giving myself is to do 100 consecutive days of running. I know that I'm awful at challenges, but I want to do this one. I actually want to succeed in a self-driven challenge. It has to be possible.

I'm working a lot today, but starting tomorrow, the plan is simple. 100 days. No misses. Every day, including days I'm sick, and my birthday. The last day is the 4th of April. I've "only" got 12.6kg to lose, so 100 days of diet and exercise will take me really close to goal. My only requirement is that I have to run for at least 5 minutes. Of course, I'm almost certain to run for longer, but that is my "if I'm sick, I need to run that" amount.

One more week of the Give Yourself The Best Gift challenge. Currently, I've lost just under 4 kilograms. Not as much as I would have liked, but every bit counts. I know that I'm going to get to goal. I just know it.

Tuesday, 20 December 2011

Well, I gained for two weeks, and then I lost this week. That's good. I've turned the ship around, but I haven't lost much. I have yet to get to the gym, but hey, that's okay. I'm having a bit of a financial crisis at the moment (due to my own mismanagement of money) and I simply can't afford the petrol to get there. Everything involving money has to be carefully allocated for the next eight days. I won't run out of food, but it'll be close.

I tried budgeting food for $60 a week, but really, it's just too boring. $92 a week makes life more enjoyable, I don't want to feel like I'm living in a food prison where the (physically) small amounts of food don't create a spark of enjoyment in my day. I want to go low carb again, but when I'm at goal, not before. Plus I bought lots of olive oil, I'll use that up before I go overseas. So from my next pay in 8 days, I'm going back to what I was eating. Special K. Meat patties. Fruit. Veges (of course!). Whey protein powder.

Christmas is going to be an almost non-event this year. Apart from Skype, I won't be seeing anyone on Christmas day. That's not specifically an issue for me this year, but I don't want it to happen for more than a few Christmas days in my life. I'll treat myself to a few nice foods, but apart from that, I'll just watch some DVD's and maybe go for a walk or something. I expect to lose weight this Christmas day, the same as I lost weight in 2010 and 2009 Christmas days.

Tuesday, 13 December 2011

Okay, I admit that I'm headed in the wrong direction. Two weeks in a row of gaining. I realised what the problem was, being on holiday for such a long time was increasing the lack of direction for me. It's not that work makes my life better, probably the opposite (with the exception of getting paid, of course). It's just having five weeks of holidays is probably a lot, and any structure that I already had in my life might slowly evaporate.

So I'm back to work now, and the structure has increased. I have a feeling that I will start with the exercise again, I didn't have this 2 or 3 weeks ago. That's good. Any small gains will take a week or two to get rid of. I've been up and down so much on this rollercoaster, a small amount is not going to change any long-term results.

My brother came to visit briefly. His oldest daughter was graduating in Dunedin, so they flew to Christchurch and stopped in to visit me on the way down, and drove the rest. I complimented him on his weight loss. He has just as bad a problem with yo-yoing as I do. I said that he only had about 10kg to go, but his wife said that she didn't want him going to get as low as 80kg because his face looked "gaunt". That's wrong, of course, his face didn't look gaunt, it's just that really, she didn't want to be with a slim man, when she was not so slim. I think that this is a common problem in couples, one person feels insecure about the other losing weight. I hope he ignores her requests. But my brother has always been an overeater (such as planning to gain weight when on holiday) so who knows when he will reach 80kg, if ever.

Tuesday, 6 December 2011

I lost 12 weeks in a row, but due to my own mismanagement I gained this week. I wasn't weighing daily, and due to overindulging more than a few days in a row, plus something I went to on Saturday night, Monday's weigh-in was a bit of a surprise. Well, really it wasn't. Don't worry, I haven't lost my weight loss mojo. This is a minor setback, a small bump in the road.

In terms of the dreaded exercise, I'm still not doing any. I'm hoping that will change soon, because I'm paying for the gym, whether I'm going or not. Maybe it's because I'm on holiday at the moment, and have been for just over a month now.

Because of my eating the same thing every day, it's easy to work out how much I spend on food. I was really surprised to see that I spend at least NZ$93 a week. That's a bit too high for me, so I am trying to get it down to about $60 a week. That means reducing protein, which may result in an increase in hunger. It's all a bit too early to tell so far. One thing I did try a few days ago was peanuts. At 44 kilojoules per cent, they are great value for money. The most expensive food in terms of energy is frozen vegetables, at 3 kilojoules per cent, but I don't buy them for the energy, rather for the nutrients. Anyway, after consuming probably more peanuts than I should have, I end up with a bad case of indigestion. I vaguely recall this happening in the past, when I over did it with peanuts. I'll have to limit how much I eat, and also plan my day so I have them over the whole day.

In case anyone is wondering what my cooking plan is, well there isn't any. I hate to cook, I see food preparation as wasted time so I tend to eat raw food or things that are easily cooked in the microwave (such as frozen veges). I've been this way since, well since I moved out of the family home. I've lived with two women, it seemed that my dislike of cooking rubbed off on them so they didn't feel the need to be all domestic and cook for me. Plus I would never ask them to.

I'm feeling fine about the gain this week, although my 12 week streak has ended. I'm expecting a loss next week.